To deal with these situations, a very intense baseball player by the name of Bob Gibson said that something special is required, per Baseball-Almanac.com: "You've got to have an attitude if you're going to go far in this game."

With Gibby's words as a guideline, here is a list of the nine most intense players in the MLB, with one honorable mention. These players most definitely have "an attitude."

It is 3-0, they are up seven, and I think there are some ethics to this game and guidelines that you have to stay within. Run. You hit a lazy fly ball, you have to run the bases. And apparently, he didn’t like me telling him that stuff and he came out there. If he thinks there’s something wrong with me saying that, then he has other things he has to check out in this game.

You look at baseball cards, there’s no such thing as a position of a ‘guy that hits lefties’ or a ‘guy that hits righties, You either hit or you don’t. Are they different? They are different, 100 percent, lefty and righty. But I didn’t hit just lefties in the 12-year-old All-Stars. Coming up through the minors, I didn’t have a swing that just hits lefties. I work very hard in the offseason to condition myself to be ready for 162 (games).

Gomes has apparently channeled this everyday intensity into his every-other-day role as a pinch hitter. He recently tied the Red Sox single-season pinch-hit home run record, held by Red Sox legend Bernie Carbo.

The challenging art of pinch hitting is easy compared to what Gomes has been through.

In a Men’s Journal survey of 100 Major League Baseball players, White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski was voted “most hated player” with 34% of the votes. “He likes to talk a lot of sh**, and I’ve heard he’s a bad teammate,” one National League pitcher tells Men’s Journal. “He’s been a prick to guys on his own pitching staff. Basically, if you haven’t got five years in the big leagues, he treats you like you’re a peasant. He’s that kind of guy.”

Pierzynski was more succinctly described to Tim Keown of ESPN The Magazine by his former manager Ozzie Guillen, another man noted for his intensity: "If you play against him, you hate him. If you play with him, you hate him a little less."

6. Johnny Cueto SP, Cincinnati Reds

He tried to start one earlier this season when he threw above the head of David DeJesus of the Chicago Cubs on May 26. DeJesus' teammate, Matt Garza, was none too pleased with the Reds right-hander, telling Patrick Mooney of CSNChicago.com that “Cueto should learn you don’t go after guys' heads.”

But Cueto kicked up quite a fuss in the massive melee between his Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals on August 10, 2010. Cueto was suspended seven games for trying to kick his way out of the mass of Cardinals players. Mike Florio of NBC Sports Hardball Talk had the gory details:

[Jason] LaRue took the worst of it, suffering a concussion and needing stitches from Cueto kicking him in the head and face with his cleats. He’ll likely end up missing more games than Cueto, who at most could miss one start and may end up simply pushing his next outing back a day if he appeals the suspension.

The guy’s got a month, I don’t even think he’s got a month in the big leagues, and just comparing him to this and that, and saying he’s going to make the all-star team, that’s a joke to me. It’s just really what happens in baseball when… to me it really does an injustice to the veteran players that have been in the game for eight, nine, ten plus years, and it kind of does them an injustice because they’ve worked so hard to stay there.

3. Brett Lawrie 3B, Toronto Blue Jays

Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images

Brett Lawrie is a fierce competitor who, with every fiber of his being, loathes losing.

The Blue Jays third baseman has been known to unleash his umbrage on umpires, most notably on May 15, 2012, when his helemet struck umpire Bill Miller after a questionable called third strike. Lawrie claimed that he he did not intend to hit Miller.

With his team trailing 5-3 in the bottom of the ninth following an RBI single by J.P. Arencibia that left runners on the corners, Lawrie hit a routine fly ball to right field and Adam Lind, who has less-than-average speed, was held up at third base.

Upset that Lind was not sent home, Lawrie yelled at both Lind and third base coach Luis Rivera as he made his way to the Toronto Blue Jays dugout.

A run by Lind would have meant nothing, but getting tagged at home would have meant everything at that point. The Jays made the correct call.

Once inside the dugout, Lawrie was barked at by manager John Gibbons with Jose Bautista stepping between them to cool things out.

2. Matt Garza SP, Chicago Cubs

Jared Wickerham/Getty ImagesMatt Garza with catcher Dioner Navarro during a friendlier trip to the mound.

To say Matt Garza is intense is an understatement.

We already know he yells at opponents after what he said to Cincinnati Reds pitcher Johnny Cueto. And that wasn't the first time Garza weighed in on a beanball war.

On July 29, 2009, while with the Tampa Bay Rays, Garza threw at New York Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira an inning after Yankees starter Joba Chamberlain threw at Rays third baseman Evan Longoria. Garza explained his motivation after the game, via Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times

It's about time someone made a statement. I hate to be that guy, but someone had to take a stand and say, 'You know, we're tired of it.' You can go after our best guy. Well, we'll make some noise, too, and that's what happened.

But Garza doesn't mind yelling at his teammates, either. On July 5, 2009, he did just that to Dioner Navarro, again while with the Tampa Bay Rays. Tampa Bay pitching coach Jim Hickey told Bill Chastain of MLB.com what he said to Garza on his visit to the mound during that same inning:

[Garza is] an emotional guy out there on the mound and I was just trying to basically encourage him to channel his emotions more toward the task at hand versus just kind of wasting it out there. And I thought he did a pretty good job after that, because it was a pretty heated situation out there. I believe he retired the next two guys.

It was deja vu all over again a year later, as he crashed into the outfield wall at Turner Field. This time, he lost the ball over the fence and suffered a contusion in the process.

Harper also broke a bat in anger on home plate after a strikeout on August 5, 2012. He only needed one hand on the bat to shatter it in front of Miami Marlins catcher John Buck. Harper apologized to Buck before his next at-bat, and Buck took the opportunity to loosen up the intense teenager, as he explained to Gabe Lacques of USA Today.

"I told him, 'Don't worry about it. I did the same thing when I was your age. It was a metal bat, and I was in high school,'" he said.

Earlier in his rookie season, Harper had tried to break another bat in anger. In the first incident, he swung his bat against a wall in a dugout tunnel after another disappointing at-bat on May 11, 2012. Needless to say, this bat didn't break. No, it bounced off the wall and hit Harper in the face, requiring 10 stitches.

Harper's quote afterwards to Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post was very telling.

"I just got caught up in the moment. I want to do so well. It just got me...It started bleeding. And I was like, ‘Ah, crap.’ Stitched it up as fast as I can and go back out to the outfield," he said.

But Harper is intense off the field as well. For example, don't ask him how he feels about the all-important issue of post-game celebratory beverages.